Beauty Pageants

Ooh, my aching head. Read an article this morning in our local 2x/week paper that our rural county is hosting a beauty pageant in November to "motivate young ladies of the county to earn scholarship money for college." My, aren't we noble? I ran upstairs first thing after reading the article and typed out my reply which I will be hand delivering to the editor this AM.

Dear Editor:

I read with interest the August 3^rd article that Western Rockingham Middle School will be hosting the first ever Miss Rockingham County Beauty Pageant in November. The scholarship is said to motivate young ladies in Rockingham County to earn scholarship money for college.

Uh-huh. What the pageant is really saying is we’d like to motivate young women in Rockingham County to earn money for college, but only the pretty ones. The rest of you will have to figure something else out.

I find it depressing our county is embracing the same tired, dated, and outrageously look-biased pageants of the past. This is not something to celebrate—this is something to be embarrassed over.

I’m all for competition to earn college money. But how about holding an event open to all young women in our county interested in attending college and not just those with attractive hair, good teeth and a chest that rounds out a swimsuit?

There are so many wasted opportunities here. Off the top of my head, how about a contest that involves talent, interviews, community service, grades, and maybe a prepared speech or public speaking segment? Instead of evening wear, the contests could answer questions while wearing appropriate clothes for those all-important job interviews. This would preclude excessive make-up, big-hair, dangling jewelry and theoretically anything that sparkles.

Young girls are not Barbie dolls to be dressed up and paraded across the stage. Shaky self-esteem is one of the greatest issues faced by young women. I fail to see how judging ones ability to glide gracefully across a stage in an evening gown addresses this issue. Not to mention the exclusionary nature of the event in the first place.

The pageant’s sponsors are to be commended for wanting to address the college needs of young women. I just wish they’d chose a less antiquated, less demeaning, and more fair way to do it.

Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul

You may think with all the painting excitement I've forgotten about my writing duties, but not true!  I've been working on a 1300-word piece for The Toastmaster on "Promoting Yourself As a Public Speaker," and am busy setting up interviews for future Art Jewelry marketing articles.

I received 4 e-mails yesterday from Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul. These were the 4 rejections for my stories that didn't make it.  No surprise there as I knew only 2 of my pieces had made it in.  And far from being depressed by the rejections, I was elated. 

Out of thousands and thousands of entries, only 150 stories make it to the final cut.  Six of my humor stories made it in, which means 4% of the final entries were my work.  That's awesome.  Then out of those 150, 101 stories are selected for inclusion in the book.  Two of my pieces made it in, so almost 2% of the book is by me.  (Okay, this is one of the pitfalls of being a writer - How long do you think I spent playing with a calculator and admiring these figures?  Yeah, pretty long).

I actually think they would have taken more but they have to strike a balance among topics and works and authors.  I got a kick out of the assistant editor who, when she accepted my 5th and 6th stories e-mailed me, "Welcome to the Dena Harris show."  I e-mailed her back and asked if she thought they would mind changing the title of the book to that, because it sure would help me out.

So promotions go on.  I checked out the web stats for this blog for the month of June and had 230 unique visitors.  Not bad, considering I haven't really tried to promote this blog as I'm waiting until the book is closer to coming out.  For my main website,www.denaharris.comI logged 653 unique visitors for the month of July or an average of 22/day.  I think that may be for my denaharris and Lessons In Stalking websites combined.  And some of those hits are robots, but that's still pretty cool. 

I just went in and looked at the stats and it's showing 33 unique visitors in the past 2 days.  Stats are fun.  For example, so far this year I've had 7 visitors from United Arab Emirates, 6 from Australia, 4 from Hong Kong, 5 from South Korea and 9 in China.

New & Amazing Breathrough Exercise Routine!

Hey guys and gals, ready to shed those unwanted pounds?  Then put down the pork chops and change into your painting clothes because it's time for the GET FIT WITH PAINTING workout!!!

It's so simple anyone can do it! All you need is a can of paint, a brush, a roller, and 4 walls.  Are you ready to sweat, people?  Then let's go!

First we need to warm up.  Pick up your gallon can of paint and shake vigorously 20 times, making sure to stop every fifth shake to complain about how heavy the stupid can is (this allows you to regulate your breathing).  Now set down the can and pick up your screwdriver and slowly pry the lid up, remembering to breath. For those ready for advanced training, set aside the screwdriver and rip the can open with your teeth.

Pour slowly and hold the pour, ignoring your trembling arms that threaten to spill paint everywhere.  This is called an isometric contraction. Are you still with me?  Good!  Now do a deep knee bend, pick up your brush, dip it in the paint and start working on your cut-ins.  Bend, dip, paint. Bend, dip, paint.  Repeat this a million times.

Let's catch our breath.  Collapse on the floor and refuse to do another lick of work until the other person in the room brings you some water.

Ready to go again?  Now we're going to work those arms!  Grab your roller and get some paint on it. Now climb the ladder and apply paint.  Climb up, paint, climb down, dip; climb up, paint, climb down, dip.  Repeat 500 times per wall.

It's time for our cool down.  We'll use this time to reflect on the great workout we've had as we carefully wash our brushes and stow our paint supplies away.  For beginners, you may notice an urge to curse at anything with your chosen paint color on it and nail the room closed from the outside so you never have to deal with it again.  This is just your body telling you you've had a good workout. Embrace it.

And don't forget  to tune in next week for our show Look Thin by Feeding Your Friends to Make Them Fat.  Until then, stay healthy!

Decorating Diaries - It's Beautiful!

The bedroom color is beautiful.  Deep sigh of relief.  As we painted the first coat my heart was in my throat.  The yellow was one of those bright, cheery, get-out-of-bed-and-greet-the-day-with-a-smile-because-everything's-gonna-be-great! yellows.  Spare me.

The second coat seemed to tone it down a notch and when we added in the oriental rug and furnishings, the walls took on a sunny but not overly bright persona.  Now the room looks like a rich yellow and our pewter headboard and crystal chandelier (fake, btw), stand out.  It broke my heart to put the ugly flowered green comforter back on the bed but the new bedcoverings won't be in for over a month.

Apparently we ticked one of the cats off by painting all weekend -- one of the two pee'd in the shower in the guest bathroom.  "At least it's a semi-considerate place to pee," we consoled ourselves.  So I'll have to spend some one-on-one time with both cats because neither has fessed up to being the culprit.  (Although my suspicions rest with Lucy.  We kept shooing her out of the room when she wanted to examine the painting process.  A cat ignored ranks right up there with a woman scorned).